


un oiseau rebelle

by broniichan



Series: sourin summerfest 2018 [2]
Category: Free!
Genre: ANGST FREE FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 23:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15673443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broniichan/pseuds/broniichan
Summary: Sousuke (excitedly) and Rin (reluctantly) go see an opera.





	un oiseau rebelle

**Author's Note:**

> back at ya with more for the [sourin summerfest](http://sourinsummerfest.tumblr.com/) using the week 3 prompt 'date night'

After a handful of minutes, Sousuke sits back, expectant eyes on Rin. 

“It’s, ah…” Rin racks his mind for something to say that isn’t too snide. “It’s pretty shrill.” 

“You hate it.” 

Rin sighs and pulls out the earbud. “Yeah.” 

“It’s fine,” Sousuke says, tapping the spacebar to freeze two middle aged women with mouths wide in the middle of a high note. “It’s not for everyone.” 

Rin can’t help but sense judgment in Sousuke’s tone, but he lets it slide for now and offers the earbud to Sousuke. Taking it, Sousuke puts it in his ear and presses play, caterwauling resuming, tinny through the earbud. Rin hops down from the top bunk.

And that’s the last they speak of opera. 

* * *

Until a Tuesday afternoon three years later. 

While walking around and doing errands on his own, Rin spots a billboard. It stares down at him, featuring a woman and a man dressed in iconic Spanish clothes, with ruffles and lace and roses and black and red, clutching each other in a theatrical pose.  _ CARMEN! _ it boasts. 

Rin stops. He tells himself to keep moving, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes a picture of the billboard and makes note of the performance dates. He returns to his apartment and, checking the picture he took, goes to the show’s website. 

Within an hour or two, there’s a knock at the door. It’s Sousuke. 

“Hey,” Rin says, letting him in. “What are those for?” 

Sousuke lifts the grocery bags in his hands. “You haven’t eaten dinner yet, right?” 

“No.”  

“Then I’ll make something.” 

With a crooked smile, Rin slides the lock shut after him. “Thanks.” 

Sousuke stashes himself in the kitchen and gets to work. While Rin is grateful, he also knows Sousuke prefers Rin’s kitchen to cook in, so it’s not as if Sousuke is doing this  _ entirely  _ for him. 

When a spicy aroma fills the apartment and things bubble and sizzle, Rin approaches the kitchen and leans into the doorframe. “So,” he says, watching Sousuke finish up dicing daikon. “Uh.” 

Scooping up the daikon and dropping it into a pot, Sousuke shoots Rin a curious look. 

“Well, I, uh…” Rin scratches the back of his head. “There’s going to be a performance of Carmen in about a month, so I… got tickets.” 

Sousuke tilts his head. “For both of us?” 

“Yeah.” 

“But you hate opera.” 

“Yeah, well… You like it, so.” 

With a small, smug smile, Sousuke looks down to stir one of the pots. “Okay.” 

“Cool.”

They’re quiet for several minutes as Sousuke works. 

“What day did you get tickets for?” Sousuke eventually asks.

“Uh, I think… I forget the date, but I got a Saturday night show.” 

Sousuke nods briskly. “Oh, good. First cast usually performs Saturday night.” 

“Wha―Why do you know that?” 

“I know plenty of things you don’t.” 

Rin frowns, and finding no good retort, he peels himself from the doorframe and leaves. 

The dinner, admittedly, tastes great. 

* * *

The day of reckoning arrives, and beforehand, Rin takes Sousuke to a tonkatsu place, unofficially but officially making it Sousuke’s night. 

“Trying to get in my good favor?” Sousuke asks, smirking. 

“Aren’t I already?” 

“Nah.” 

“Then, no.” Rin takes a quick bite and scalds his tongue. He sits back, mentally cursing his impatience. “I have better things to do than get in your good favor.” 

“I see.” 

Rin pays, anyway. 

They arrive at the theater a little before seven, stepping into a grand, arching lobby filled with elderly people dressed to their best. As they take plush carpeted stairs up to the actual auditorium, Rin prickles with unease, feeling like an intruder. They show their printed tickets and enter, finding a closed deep blue curtain surrounded by ornate scaffolding. People mill around and chat, the seats almost entirely full. Rin and Sousuke find their seats in the balcony, which surprisingly have good views of the stage. 

While Sousuke flicks through the program, Rin scans the audience and to his surprise, there are more people under the age of fifty than he expected. Some teenagers, one or two kids.

“Here,” Sousuke says, handing over the program. “It has the plot of each act in here so you can follow along.” 

Rin tentatively takes it. “How many acts are there?” 

“Four.” 

“ _ Four? _ ” Rin clamps his mouth shut and busies himself with opening to the first page of the program. “I mean, cool. Whatever.” 

“You’re really restraining yourself.” Sousuke’s mouth curls. “It’s fine. Don’t hold back.”

“Oh, well…” Rin sighs and rests the program on his lap. “I guess there aren’t as many old people here as I was expecting. You have such specific interests, you know. You’re like an old man.” 

“But a hot old man, right?” 

“Gross. Don’t say that ever again.” 

Sousuke laughs. 

Amid the talk of the audience and the orchestra warming up, they fall into silence and absorb the atmosphere. Rin tries to read the summaries of each act, but there are so many other characters aside from Carmen herself he can’t focus enough to process anything. 

Eventually, the orchestra quiets and the lights dim. Sousuke blinks into alertness beside Rin with a tiny catch of breath. A single note from the oboe, and the rest of the instruments join in on the same note. Once tuned properly, the sound fades and there’s nothing but rustles of sheet music and thunks of shifting instruments. 

The conductor enters to applause and the rise of the orchestra, and with a wave and bow to the audience, the conductor faces the orchestra and everything goes silent. 

A tenuous breath. The conductor’s hands move, and the overture begins. 

Rin’s not particularly into classical, but while the overture is long, it’s pretty interesting. For classical. It ends on an ominous note, then with lighter music, the curtain rises to display the set mimicking a vibrant town in Spain. 

Rin cringes a little once the singing begins. A projection over the stage translates the French line-by-line, luckily for him, since he barely read the synopsis and understands jack shit in French. Then again, he doubts he would be able to understand even if he knew French with the way the singers extend and trill the sounds. He keeps an eye on the translations, wondering why the hell they can’t just speak these conversations like normal goddamn people. He sinks into his seat with a sigh. Then it wouldn’t be an opera. 

Throughout the first act, Rin remains critical, searching for Carmen herself, until finally, she enters, hair cascading in curls, full of vivacious energy as she sings her first full song. The famous one, Habanera or whatever. Rin’s heard it before. Hearing it in full now, he is reluctantly captivated by the singer’s bravado and easy sensuality, and even if he still finds the notes a bit piercing for his taste, he commends her for being able to reach them. 

The plot progresses, with Carmen seducing the soldier Don José (with them briefly making out and looking down to fuck right there on the stage) and getting him thrown in jail instead of her. 

When the curtain closes and the first act ends, the lights remain mostly dim for the quick fifteen minute intermission. 

“So?” Sousuke whispers. “How is it?”

“It’s a lot… raunchier than I expected.” 

“Oh? Old people fuck too, you know.” 

Rin whacks him with the back of his hand. “ _ Stop. _ ”

With hushed chuckles, Sousuke readjusts in his seat. “Well,” he says, “at least you haven’t left yet.” 

“I’ve got three acts to go.”

“Still, this is the longest you’ve sat through anything opera, so I’m taking that as a victory.” 

“Hm.” 

The auditorium darkens again, and with the return of the conductor, the second act begins. 

Now Carmen and her friends party in some tavern, dancing and drinking until the toreador Escamillo arrives in a rousing aria. The aria captures Rin against his best wishes with Escamillo’s deep, powerful voice and flashy red and gold toreador costume. 

Once Escamillo is (regretfully) gone, José returns to Carmen, now freed from prison, and they bask in their love until the sound of the army bugle threatens to pull José away. Carmen fights with him about whether or not he loves her or not. 

Watching the drama unfold onstage, Sousuke leans into Rin. “She’s more dramatic than you.” 

Rin elbows him. 

The second act concludes with José proving his love to Carmen through promising to help her with a smuggling job and thus ditching the army. 

The house lights come on in full, finally, for a half-hour intermission. Sousuke leaves for the bathroom and Rin flicks through the program again, more attentive this time. He reads through the cast list and then the short biographies of the primary performers. The synopses of the third and fourth acts lie waiting for him, but he decides not to read them, wanting them to stay unknown for now. 

Sousuke scoots his way through the row and sits back down. Noticing Rin perusing the program, he smirks. 

Rin looks up from the program. “What?” 

“Nothing.” 

Pursing his lips, Rin slaps the program shut. 

With dimming lights, the orchestra tunes itself again to the oboe and the conductor reappears with more applause. The third act begins. Mid-smuggling venture, Carmen and José are on bad terms once more and fight. Later, Carmen’s friends use tarot cards to guess their future, and Carmen’s card reads death. She apparently loves Escamillo now and ditches José, and when Escamillo appears in search for her, he and José quarrel. Nothing of consequence happens, and Escamillo invites everyone to his upcoming bullfight. José and Carmen part ways, but with an ominous promise from José that she will see him again, the act ends. 

The energy is subdued during the fifteen minute break before the next act. Sousuke and Rin don’t speak. 

The last act begins with high energy―the primary characters don’t show up for some time as a crowd cheers in anticipation of Escamillo’s bullfight. Escamillo eventually enters, Carmen on his arm, both in luxurious, glittering costumes. The crowd files into the arena (offstage), while Carmen stays behind. José waits for her. He tells her he loves her and begs her to come with him, but she refuses him. 

The tension builds―the offstage crowd cheers for Escamillo―the orchestra teetering―and brandishing a knife, José threatens Carmen, unable to leave without her, but she does not budge. 

As José stabs her, something about the reframing of the cheerful toreador theme from the crowd, the way Carmen goes limp in José’s arms―tightness grips Rin’s throat, and sudden tears slip from his eyes. 

José sings his last, mournful notes and the crowd exits the bullfight to find him clutching Carmen’s lifeless body, and in swelling notes from the orchestra, the curtain falls. 

Sniffling, Rin joins the applause surrounding him. The curtain reopens for the cast to take their bows in progression of least to most influential. When José and Carmen step out last, the audience roars and people jump to their feet. Face wet, Rin stands as well, and a second after, so does Sousuke. They clap, hands hurting, while José and Carmen take multiple bows and then join in as the entire cast bows. The curtain drops with finality. 

House lights warming and dropping them back in reality, Rin wipes his face with his hands, pretending Sousuke hasn’t noticed. Sousuke merely raises his eyebrows. The other audience members begin to filter out, murmuring.

Tears well up again. Rin ducks away and scrambles out of the row to dash up the steps with blurry vision. He darts across the lobby and bursts into the men’s bathroom. Crumbling into full-on sobs, he holds himself up against the sink, head hanging. 

Sousuke appears on his side, leaning into the sink with arms folded, looking amused. He plucks out a paper towel to hand to Rin. 

Rin takes the paper towel and presses it to his eyes. He blubbers, “She―Why couldn’t José take no for an answer―And―”

“Yep.” 

Rin continues crying into the paper towel, receiving weird looks from an elderly man squeezing in to wash his hands, until gradually, he wears himself out. 

He sighs and pushes back his hair, faced with his puffy eyes in the mirror. He looks at Sousuke. “Okay, I’m good.” 

Sousuke straightens up and drops his arms. 

They exit the bathroom and head down the stairs to the main lobby, Rin still sniffing. It’s nighttime outside the theater, vibrant city lights coloring them with a hazy glow. 

As they walk toward the station, Sousuke finally speaks. “So. Do you like opera now?” 

“I like Carmen,” Rin says, petulantly, and Sousuke smiles. 

They walk a little more in silence. 

Sousuke asks, “You didn’t wear yourself out crying, did you?” 

“No, I’m not tired.” 

“Mm.” 

Rin cocks his head. “Oh, am I in your favor now?”

“Maybe.” 

Dodging glances, they board the train back to Rin’s apartment. 

* * *

In the morning, Rin gets up first. He pulls up a playlist of famous opera arias on his laptop to listen through as he nurses a mug of tea. When Sousuke stumbles out of bed, yawning, Rin yanks out his earbuds and slams his laptop shut. 

Brow furrowing, Sousuke asks, “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Sousuke nods, but there’s a hint of a smile on his mouth. 

**Author's Note:**

> the [ FIRST sourin oneshot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4827740) i EVER wrote was about sousuke liking opera, so i guess i'm going back to my roots?? read if you dare i tried rereading but i was in too much agony over my stylistic choices
> 
> look the plot and themes of carmen are a bit.. hmmmmMM but damn if it ain’t full of bangers. did hear about a recent production where carmen kills josé instead and i support that. title comes from the aria 'l'amour est un oiseau rebelle' ('love is a rebellious bird') aka habanera because this if nothing else will solidify what a pretentious fuck i am
> 
> aight back to my regularly scheduled angst
> 
> [tumblr](http://broniichan.tumblr.com) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/bronii_chan) / [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/bronii_chan)


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